


Three Characters in Search of an Exit

by westwoodandridingcrops



Series: 2nd Sheriarty 30 Day Challenge [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-30
Updated: 2017-07-30
Packaged: 2018-12-09 00:57:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11658288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westwoodandridingcrops/pseuds/westwoodandridingcrops
Summary: In which Jim and Sherlock have a problem with everything.





	Three Characters in Search of an Exit

His steps creaked the stairs, seventeen discreet paces, to the top and through the doors of the flat, rhythmically so that Sherlock could picture his form darkening the door before he’d even heard the door swing open. Sherlock kept his eyes closed, reclined as he was on the couch, his hands steepled beneath his chin. He rolled his eyes as Sherlock palpably attempted to put off waves of indifference.

"Oh _laaaaaamb_ ," The man at the door began, at once dripping venom and sweetness.“Wait. What?”  
  
“What.” Sherlock echoes flatly, sitting up from the couch.  
  
**What? What’s wrong? Start over.**  
  
“Oh, _laamb…”_ He repeats with less conviction this time, as Sherlock tries to decide whether to settle back down or not. “Lamb, though? I wouldn’t open with that. I wouldn’t close with that, either. I just wouldn’t say that at all.”  
  
**Yes, you would. You call him obnoxious pet names all the time. Literally, all the time.**  
  
“No. I’ve done it the one time and then only to contrast _my_ ironic flippancy with how….” he waves a hand in Sherlock’s direction “uptight he is.”  
  
**Don’t use that yet. I was going to use ‘uptight’ as a double-entendre later. Anyway, you have to use a pet name because you’ve gone unnamed thus far and this is a way of establishing that you’re you.**  
  
“Jim. Jim’s steps. Just say Jim.”  
  
“That’s not going to happen. The author’s already proven that she’s willing to sacrifice accuracy for cheap lines of reference as a way of entertaining those readers that are slightly more aware of the original source material.”  
  
**Excuse me?**  
  
“17 steps. You had him come up the steps and realized it would be an opportune call back to the fact that the attentive public will have realized that there are 17 steps up to the flat now just as there have always been. But you were so enamored of the idea of banging this out that you’ve completely ignored that you’ve described them as ‘discreet’ steps when you meant ‘discrete’ steps. He was meant to creak 17 times exactly, now you have him going up the steps prudently, somehow.”  
  
**Thank you. Discrete. Sorry. Now, places everyone and from the top. This time, Jim, when you lean in the doorway, toss the apple up in the air and then catch it a few times as you’re talking. I liked your ironic flippancy bit.** **Maybe take a bite out of it during the conversation, too.**  
  
“Wait.”  
  
**What?**  
  
 “Apple?”  
  
**Yes, apple. Once you’ve gotten up the steps, start tossing the apple.**  
  
“Which apple?”  
  
**The one in your pocket.**  
  
“Ha. I don’t have an apple in my pocket.”  
  
**You do, too. It’s been there the whole time.**  
  
“ _No,_ I _don’t,_ ” Jim says, very seriously, suddenly becoming aware of the bulge within his pocket. “Do I look like the type to carry bulky things in my pockets?”  
  
**I…**  
  
“No, I don’t. That would ruin the suit’s silhouette.” Sherlock snorts from the couch as the apple disappears. “I really tend to think of pockets as more decorative than functional. Have _him_ send out the help for an apple beforehand so it’s already around somewhere.”  
  
**We can’t because you have to have it already when you first come in if the visual is going to work. Besides, what are you going to do? Go digging around the drawing room in case he has a stray apple?**  
  
“The where?”  
  
“Drawing room, Jim,” nods Sherlock. “Just inside from where the lorries are skating the kerb and driving on the left side. It’s all very well re-SEARCHED and British, as you can see.”  
  
**My God. Fine. What do you want to call it?**  
  
“Sitting room,” Sherlock says simultaneously with Jim’s suggestion: “Living room”  
  
“Ha!” Sherlock crows.  
  
“What?”  
  
**Yes, what?**  
  
“You said ‘living room.’ And, earlier, from your perspective, you thought of it as a couch. You’re poor in this one.”  
  
“I’m poor in all of them,” Jim sighs.  
  
**Yes. You are. Or, you were. We’ll be discussing class differences later so someone has to be poor and John and Lestrade aren’t in this one. It obviously can’t be _him,_ he apparently was raised in an ancestral home with a fake, decorative graveyard. We have no idea where _you’re_ from. It’s you. You’re nouveau riche**.  
  
“Actually, I can’t really manage to sound any more south Dublin.”  
  
**Headcanon says you’re faking it. Always have been. Now, if we’re all done that with that…Where are you going, Jim?**  
  
 “Why does it say that? If you’re going to emphasize that we’re two sides of the same coin, why not have us come from largely equivalent backgrounds?”  
  
“Makes me less redeemable, I think,” Jim points out over his shoulder, as he heads into the kitchen.  
  
**Yes. Precisely.**  
  
“But none of it should be redeemable. That’s sort of the point of me, isn’t it?” Jim calls from the kitchen. He emerges with two tea cups. Sherlock accepts his tea and scoots over to make Jim room to sit.  
  
**No. I mean, yes, originally, I suppose. But not for our purposes. Listen, at some point, we’re going to have to be able to sympathize with you, and this way, you’re a person who’s risen from poverty and other difficult childhood events through the power of talent and sheer, unadulterated, raw ambition. In spite of all that, you’ve still managed to remain vivacious, unafraid of living, and have done obscenely well for yourself. _That_ sort of person is sympathetic. Such a person would be endearing and, frankly, _attractive._ Such a person would thaw out someone more rigid and unemotional. Sherlock will find that out for himself if we ever survive this scene and move on to the intimate, post-coital moment of vulnerability.**  
  
“Author?” Sherlock sits forward, squinting, suddenly close behind whatever he’s on the trail of, “Are you married? Is your wife, in fact, aware that you’re cheerfully flinging bits of her everywhere?”  
  
“They always say,” Jim singsongs into his tea, “Write what you know.”  
  
**WOW. Enough. That’s enough. Drop the tea. Unmake the tea. The tea never happened. Get back up. Back in the doorway. Just hold the apple in your hand on your way up the stairs and take it from the top.**  
  
Still shaking away the disorientation of suddenly being in the doorway, Jim intones “Oh, laaa….no, I can’t. There isn’t any saving it, author, this is still a stupid line. Kill your darlings.”  
  
**I won’t.**  
  
“No, she won’t,” Sherlock agrees from the couch, laying suddenly flat.

**What? Oh, my God, what, Sherlock?**

"The line, awful as it is, will remain. You've decided to force Jim to announce himself with a saccharine epithet but, if it were just that, you would have immediately read that aloud, realized it sounds strange in his mouth and then substituted it for 'honey' before reasoning that you don't want to repeat the source material exactly. That would almost stray from fan-written fiction into direct plagiarism. Eventually, you would have just settled for something thematically similar but literally different. 'Sweetheart,' for instance. But, you didn't. So, you thought it would imbue your work with depth if you subtly introduced the connection between me and an animal known for innocence and sacrifice and then followed through with yet another tale of the loss of my virginity and my eventual, metaphorical death. Having Jim first call me that for seemingly humorous effect and then revealing that he intends to have me play just such a part gives your writing what you think of as....layers."

"And," Jim chortles, "Since we’ve already established that you can’t help but to….wait for it…insert yourself. You're from a group of people steeped in religious imagery, Catholic imagery, no less. Both oppressed by and obsessed with the Church and on top of that, you’re gay. I'm obviously going to be the perfect vehicle for the perverse pleasure you take in twisting all that Agnus Dei imagery on its head. Oh my God,” he pauses, disbelieving. “Is _that_ why I’m always trying to eat this apple?"

**OKAY. Okay. Yes. Yes, I'm awkward and I want people to think I'm clever and entertaining to cover a deep fear that I won’t belong anywhere or be accepted by anyone, otherwise. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be this invested in the show to begin with, now would I?**

Sherlock shifts uncomfortably. 

**And yes, I'm probably hungry for compelling characters who I can think of as working class victims of several forms of societal oppression who are also gay. I happen to find that extremely relatable, regardless of whether they out-and-out say they’re gay or not and regardless of other morally problematic behavior. Why else would I constantly do literary backflips to revisit the same characters and write them some happiness, particularly when some of these characters are probably DEAD?**

Jim’s eyes go wide for only a moment before he finds the examination of his cufflink highly interesting. 

**It's all true. But ultimately, I'm going to write what I know and what I know is obscure references, marginalization, and gay sex. So, for God's sake, call him lamb this instant, engage in witty, cutting banter, and then find ways to have sex on his iconic armchair or I'm deleting this whole thing at once and joining another fandom TODAY.**

After a moment's pause, Jim rolls his eyes and shrugs, conceding. Sherlock grumbles about how they might have done that anyway but settles back into his recumbent position on the couch. 

**Good. Now. Up the steps, seventeen steps, if you please.**

"Oh _laaaaaamb_ ," Jim began, at once dripping venom and sweetness.


End file.
